This is a rude question to many people, which is why it is so important that
it be asked. The Obama administration is moving forward with a massive bailout
program to rid the banks of their bad assets. The plan could involve as much
as $1 trillion of the taxpayers' money.

Many of us have pointed out that the plan can be easily gamed. It is likely
to lead to a situation in which investors overpay for these assets because most
of the downside risk will rest with the taxpayers. If investors subsequently
lose money when they resell the assets, the taxpayers will eat most of the loss.
It is also possible that, even with the huge subsidies implicit in this plan,
the banks will still need more help six months or a year down the road.

The prospect of taxpayers losing hundreds of billions on a bank bailout, which
doesn't even fix the banks, is not very inspiring. In fact, it is a complete
disaster. Even in Washington, $200 billion is real money. This would be enough
to pay for almost 70 million kid years of SCHIP. If the government loses this
much money on a failed bank bailout effort, it would be a true disaster.

This is the reason for asking if anyone will get fired for designing a bad
plan. Most of us have jobs in which we are expected to perform. If a retail
clerk keeps giving the wrong change, he gets fired. If a custodian can't clean
the toilet properly, he gets fired. If a construction worker can't lay the bricks
evenly, she gets fired. That is the way it works where most people live.

Unfortunately, that is not the way it works on Wall Street. The vast majority
of the highly paid executives who could not see an $8 trillion housing bubble
still have their jobs. These people committed an enormous, and easily preventable,
mistake that destroyed several major banks, and would have destroyed most of
the others if the government had not rushed in with taxpayer dollars. (Incidentally,
their incompetence also wrecked the economy.)

However, the failure to see the housing bubble caused relatively few senior
people to lose their jobs. Most of them successfully used the "who could
have known" defense. They argued that it was all so complex that they could
not be blamed just because they didn't see the biggest financial bubble in the
history of the world. While a custodian or dishwasher could never get away with
such a pathetic excuse, this sort of nonsense was sufficient to keep the Wall
Street millionaires and billionaires in their jobs.

This brings us to the people who designed the Obama administration's bailout
plan. The question is, if this plan ends up being a disaster, will its designers
be held responsible in some way, presumably by losing their jobs? In polite
Washington circles, this is an extremely rude question, because polite Washingtonians
think that the government should follow Wall Street rules, at least for those
in top positions.

The idea that anyone would be fired just because their policies led to disaster
is offensive to the Washington establishment. In these elite circles, bad outcomes
are just bad luck; no one is ever held responsible for giving bad advice.

However, President Obama ran on a platform of change. This would be a good
place to start. When his top economic officials design bad policies, it is reasonable
to expect that they would be held accountable. President Obama should be holding
his staff to Main Street standards, where workers are expected to perform for
their salaries.

It is bad enough that the major banks tolerate ineptitude in high places, especially
when the whole country gets stuck picking up the tab. However, we cannot afford
to also have Wall Street standards applied in the top echelon of government.
If these people cannot design effective policies, they must be sent packing.
President Obama must insist on accountability from his top advisers. If their
policies do not work, then they must face consequences.

Dean Baker is a macroeconomist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He previously worked as a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor at Bucknell University. He is a regular Truthout columnist and a member of Truthout's Board of Advisers.